Why Language Barriers Really Don’t Matter — I lived in Quebec City for about 2 years, and when I was there I only spoke broken French. The French and English relations in Canada are mostly good now, but there are some barriers there. For one, the French and the British back in the day fought over Canada…

The Story of a Black American Who Befriended KKK Members — Daryl Davis is a black American who has actually converted members of the KKK to being no longer racist. You heard that right — a black man, who KKK members inherently hate, was able to convince KKK members to give up their cloaks. How did he manage to do this…

How Can We Find Union in a Time of Division? It seems the political divide — left vs. right — is only getting bigger and bigger. I’ve been doing a lot of pondering on why we seem to disagree so much to the point where debates can often disintegrate into…

Feeling Sorry For Bad People is the Way You may think that we should hate someone like Joseph Stalin, or Mao. You may think that we should all hate that bully in high school. …

Despite Our Differences, Do We Want the Same Things? — We human beings are all 99.9% genetically similar. That means that what separates us is 0.01%. Really think about that for a minute. We all have way more in common than we do differently, genetically speaking. That also means that our psychology isn’t that different. …

Negative Character Visualization and its Benefits — One practice that is incredibly valuable is imagining who you could be if you got your shit together. If you did everything right, who could you be? Likely, it’s similar to someone that you look up to. Hence, it’s someone that you deeply respect. You deeply respect the person that…

Why Stoics Practice Premeditatio Malorum (Premeditation of Evils) — Many people will give the advice to “be positive”. What this means, in a sense, is to be optimistic, to focus on the good things, and to imagine your future success. Certainly, there’s a place for this in life. However, is there a place for negative visualization? Should we incorporate…

Can We Be Too Positive? — Many successful athletes do something called “positive visualization”. Before they lift a weight or do their sport, they visualize successfully completing the move. …

Where Do Meaning and Happiness Really Come From? — This is one of the hardest truths of life. Life must be lived under tension. You don’t flourish by being strong; you flourish by getting stronger. And how do you get stronger? By carrying a load! Becoming Physically Stronger I do Olympic weightlifting. That sport is infamously known to be hard on the…